How the mind uses the brain

"With recent advances in artificial intelligence and neuroscience, the nature of consciousness and the relation between mind and brain have become the most hotly debated topics in philosophy. Yet agreement looks farther away than ever." "Ellis and Newton explain and argue for a bold new approach, called enactivism, showing how it cuts through various difficulties which have stumped previous theories. At first glance, enactivism itself seems open to fatal objections, but the authors demonstrate in detail that these objections disappear on closer examination." "How the Mind Uses the Brain represents a sharp break with the tradition which sees consciousness as the final step in a chain of causes and effects, with information processing going on in the intervening steps. This tradition has reduced consciousness to an appendage.^ According to Ellis and Newton, consciousness and emotions are central aspects of the organism's ongoing self-organizational activity, driving information processing rather than merely responding to it." ""Ellis and Newton brilliantly convey the excitement and power of an approach to the mind-body problem that looks set to sweep all before it. The new wave of ac